The Bourne Sanction

He’d joined CI as a glorified pencil pusher, and, yes, he’d worked his way up the professional ladder, but not into fieldwork or counterintelligence. No, he was chief of field support, which meant that he was in charge of gathering and distributing the paperwork generated by the very CI perso

He was enveloped in pleasure, a warm, viscous friction spreading outward from his groin into his torso and limbs. He closed his eyes and sighed.

At first, being an anonymous cog in the CI machine suited him, but as the years passed, as he rose in the hierarchy, only the Old Man understood his worth, for it was the Old Man who promoted him, time after time. But no one else-certainly none of the other directors-said a word to him until they needed something. Then a request came flying through CI cyberspace as quick as you could say, I need it yesterday. If he got them what they wanted yesterday, he heard nothing, not even a nod of thanks in the hallway, but should there be any delay at all, no matter the reason, they’d land on him like woodpeckers on a tree full of insects. He’d never hear the end of their pestering until they got what they wanted, and then silence again. It seemed sadly ironic to him that even in an insider’s paradise like CI he was on the outside.

It was humiliating to be one of those stereotypical Americans who time and again got sand kicked in his face. How he hated himself for being a living, breathing clichй. It was these evenings spent with General Kendall that gave his life color and meaning, the clandestine meetings in the health club sauna, the di

General Kendall, smoking a cigar in the corral, the colloquial name for the parlor room where the girls were paraded for the benefit of the patrons, was enjoying himself immensely. If he was thinking of his boss at all, it was of the heart attack this scene he was enacting would cause LaValle. As for his family, they were the farthest thing from his mind. Unlike Feir, who always went for the same girl, Kendall was a man of diverse tastes when it came to the women of The Glass Slipper, and why not? He had virtually no choice in any other areas of his life. If not here, where?

He sat on the purple velvet sofa, one arm thrown along the back, watching through slitted eyes the slow parade of flesh. He had already made his choice; the girl was in her room, undressing, but when Bev had come to him, suggesting that he might want something a bit more special-another girl to create a threesome-he hadn’t hesitated. He’d been just about to make his choice when he saw someone. She was impossibly tall, with skin like the darkest cocoa, and was so regal in her beauty that he broke out into a sweat.

He caught Bev’s eye and she came over. Bev was attuned to his desires. “I want her,” he said to Bev, pointing at the regal beauty.

“I’m afraid Kiki’s not available,” she said.

This answer made Kendall want her all the more. Venal witch; she knew him too well. He produced five hundred-dollar bills. “How about now?” he said.

Bev, true to form, pocketed the money. “Leave it to me,” she said.

The general watched her pick her way through the girls to where Kiki was standing, somewhat apart from the others. While he observed the conversation his heart began to beat in his chest like a war drum. He was sweating so much he was obliged to wipe his palms on the purple velvet of the sofa arm. If she said no, what would he do? But she wasn’t saying no, she was looking across the corral at him, with a smile that raised his temperature a couple of degrees. Jesus, he wanted her!

As if in a trance, he saw her coming across the room toward him, her hips swaying, that maddening half smile on her face. He stood up, with some difficulty, he noted. He felt like a seventeen-year-old virgin. Kiki held out her hand and he took it, terrified that she’d be repulsed if it was damp, but nothing interfered with that half smile.

There was something intensely pleasurable about allowing her to lead him past all the other girls, enjoying the looks of envy on their faces.

“Which room are you in?” Kiki murmured in a voice like honey.

Kendall, inhaling her spicy, musky scent, could not find his voice. He pointed, and again she led him as if he were on a leash until they were standing in front of the door.

“Are you sure you want two girls tonight?” She brushed her hip against his. “I’m more than enough for any man I’ve been with.”

The general felt a delicious shiver travel down the length of his spine, lodge itself like a heated arrow between his thighs. Reaching out, he opened the door. Lena writhed on the bed, naked. He heard the door close behind him. Without thinking, he undressed himself, then he stepped out of the puddle of his clothes, took Kiki’s hand, padded over to the bed. He knelt on it, she let go of his hand, and he fell on Lena.

He felt Kiki’s hands on his shoulders, and, groaning, he lost himself within Lena’s lush body. The pleasure built along with the anticipation of Kiki’s long, lithe body pressed against his glistening back.

It took him some time to become aware that the quick flashes of light weren’t a result of the quickened firing of nerve endings behind his eyes. Drugged with sex and desire, he was slow to turn his head directly into another battery of flashes. Even then, negative images dancing behind his retinas, his fogged brain couldn’t quite piece together what was happening, and his body continued to move rhythmically against Lena’s pliant flesh.

Then the camera flashed again, he belatedly raised his hand to shield his eyes, and there was stark reality staring him in the face. Kiki, still dressed, continued to take shots of him and Lena.

“Smile, General,” she said in that sensual, honeyed voice. “There’s nothing else you can do.”

I’ve got too much anger inside me,” Petra said. “It’s like one of those flesh-eating diseases you read about.”

“Dachau is toxic for you, so is Munich now,” Bourne said. “You’ve got to go away.”

She moved to the left-hand lane of the autobahn, put on some real speed. They were on their way back to Munich in the car Pelz’s nephew had bought for him under the nephew’s name. The police might still be looking for both of them, but their only lead was Petra’s Munich apartment, and neither of them had any intention of going anywhere near it. As long as she didn’t get out of the car, Bourne felt it was relatively safe for her to drive him back into the city.

“Where would I go?” she said.

“Leave Germany altogether.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Turn tail and run, you mean.”

“Why would you see it that way?”

“Because I’m German; because I belong here.”

“The Munich police are looking for you,” he said.

“And if they find me, then I’ll do my time for killing your friend.” She flashed her headlights so a slower car could get out of her way. “Meanwhile I have money. I can live.”

“But what will you do?”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’m going to take care of Virgil. He needs drying out; he needs a friend.” Nearing the city, she changed lanes so she could exit when she needed to. “The cops won’t find me,” she said with an odd kind of certainty, “because I’m taking him far away from here. Virgil and me, we’ll be two outlaws learning a whole new way of life.”